Lighting systems are known and widely implemented for many various applications. For example lighting systems may be used in industrial, commercial, residential, or other leisure environments. Such lighting systems are rapidly being converted into ‘smart’ systems whereby a central controller may be configured to receive inputs from sensors such as passive infra-red sensors configured to determine a ‘warm’ body entering or moving within a room and control a lighting system to light up a room. Such systems are currently limited in that they generally may only determine the presence or absence of ‘objects’ of interest within the field of view of the detector.
More complex systems may employ a camera or array of cameras configured to capture images which may then be analyzed to determine the presence of ‘objects’ and furthermore in some systems the type of the object, the direction of motion of the object or similar. However the implementation of image sensors sensitive to capture images with sufficient detail to enable such processing and the implementation of suitable processing means to process the images significantly raises the cost or ‘bill of materials’ of such systems and also increases the power consumption of as such and the lighting system.
Furthermore lighting systems are further using more intelligent light units. For example ‘pixelated’ light unit can be configured to adapt or adjust the pattern (or throw) of the generated light as well as being able to adapt or adjust the level of lighting. It is able to perform these operations by adjusting the light generated by pixels or by switching on and off pixels within the lighting system. An example of such a pixelated light unit is the OSRAM UX:3 technology.
These adaptive light systems have also been employed in automotive or vehicular light systems as well as conventional static systems. In such systems the ability to monitor the scene and allow the lighting to be adapted based on the results of the analysis is a goal for many research projects.